Mike Mignola Analysis 2

 

Another Mike Mignola cover that grabbed my attention was this Witchfinder cover. The first thing I notice is that much like the last one there is a stairstep rhythm to the way the heads and bodies of the figures are positioned . In the foreground we see someone positioned leaning their body to the right but their head to the left, its also worth noting that this close figure has one of his eyes partially blocked out which gives him contrast of detail compared to the people in the background. 

Nehind him we get another figure, this time a woman whose head is positioned right above the front figure but slightly more to the left. From her we can follow the gesture of her head backwards to three men who seem to be standing roughly on the same plane and then another figure behind them also swayed to the right like the figure in the foreground. 

Much like all of Mignola's work these characters silhouette is connected all by a endless dark grouping that moves from the dark structure behind all of them and all the way to the foreground character. He adds bits of light and detail as the figures get closer to us and when a figure is further away he lets the strong shapes of the silhouette read for him instead. 

Other compositional elements include the diagonal motion the symbols make from the left side of the page to the right side of the page. Each symbol has a rhythm to it and you could say there is also a stair step diagonal rhythm that you could follow from the left shapes through the eyes of the woman to the lower symbol shapes. The flow of this image is helped tremendously by the slant of the womans head, had she been staring at us completely head on it would have broken this effect. 

Likewise I really enjoy the negative space that is deployed to the left of the image and the top which makes room for the text but there is still enough going on here with the figures and symbols for you to see that there is some sort of story element playing out.